Page 76 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

Pritkin narrowed his eyes at me, but I guessed he preferred this topic to the other because, after a moment, he came back over and sat down.

“Rhosier isn’t just a cook,” I was told. “He and Bodil have been working together to get some of the humans out of here and back to Earth for years. The servants in the royal household act as his eyes and ears so that he knows who has incurred the wrath of someone important, and she has access to the portal. They’ve sent through many hundreds at this point without anyone being the wiser. The rumor is that the missing people ran away to join the dark fey, which has happened occasionally.”

“But instead, they ran to Earth?”

He nodded. “Bodil never agreed with Nimue’s practice of capturing or luring human women here. Although I think that was initially more about the purity of the fey bloodline than any moral misgivings. But over time, as she saw what was happening to them—”

“Like Enid,” I said, seeing that half-beautiful, half-destroyed face again.

“Like Enid,” he agreed. “They are treated like cattle and abused as easily. It’s one reason their hybrid children are taken from them early and sent to the frontiers to be raised as warriors, so they don’t get attached to their mothers and cause trouble. But Rhosier’s magic came in late, causing the fey to suppose him weak.

“They discharged him from military service, and he became a spit-turner at the palace instead. He moved up through the centuries to head the kitchens, having inherited a long life from his father.”

“And found a hobby?” I guessed.

“A dangerous one.” Pritkin grimaced. “He started using the portal, sneaking people through with the help of some of the guards on duty, who were also part human. At first, he concentrated on those who had incurred the wrath of someone powerful enough to cause them trouble—which, for a slave, could be almost anyone. But later. . .”

“Later?”

“I told him it was foolish. But he was determined, and he’s extremely difficult to reason with—”

Like somebody else I knew, I thought.

“—and has been telling the slaves, not just here but those in the villages as well, to have their children fake incompetence. He’s shown them how to fail the tests they used to vie with each other to pass.”

“What tests?” I asked because I still knew so little of this place.

“The guards on the frontiers live well—for as long as they do live—and have some status in fey society. The part-humans who can’t pass do not. As a result, the slaves’ children do everything possible to be taken by the army. Their mothers even encourage it, knowing what their lives will be otherwise.”

“I thought they were returned to Earth otherwise,” I said because that was how all those part-fey children had ended up dumped in old Wales.

“Once, but not for centuries. When the Silver Circle, with Caedmon’s help, shut down the slave trade and most of the portals making it possible, the Alorestri retaliated by refusing to send back any more part-humans. I think they planned to use the threat as a bartering tactic, but the Circle readily agreed. They didn’t like the trouble the Returned made and were happy enough to leave them here—”

“That’s why you said Jonas wouldn’t help us,” I said, understanding a bit more.

“Among other reasons. But the covens were willing to take them in, as it was largely their blood, their sisters, who had been stolen. And thus, the children were their descendants.”

I nodded, remembering when I’d visited one of the witches’ hidden enclaves in the desert outside of Vegas.

They’d established a small network of such places as a defense against the Circle and its laws in the 1500s when the two groups had been at war, but it had grown through the centuries to span the globe. The enclave I’d seen had been filled with strange and wonderful magic—and fey, lots and lots of fey and part-fey hybrids. I remembered their candy-colored hair and peculiar clothing but hadn’t thought much about it then.

The covens regularly traded with Faerie to evade the Circle’s prohibitions on the import of various potion ingredients. Those hit the covens harder than anyone else, as their magic was derived from that of the fey, and they needed their resources for many spells. I’d naturally assumed that the people I saw there were traders, and maybe some of them were.

But not all, it seemed.

“Rhosier managed to sneak out a dozen or so at a time,” Pritkin added. “Mostly children, the ones the fey didn’t care about as they had already been passed over in the selection process.

“They were seen as fit only to till the fields or serve in the great houses; no one much cared if they ran away to join the dark fey, died of an illness, or were attacked by wild animals—all of which were excuses he made up over the years. The only problem was that there weren’t many guards willing to risk helping him, and those who would were rarely stationed together. It caused a bottleneck, and then Bodil caught him one night red-handed. Fortunately, they reached an agreement.”

“Lucky him.”

“Yes, he has always been that, which is needed considering that he is also reckless, stupidly brave, even foolhardy—”

“Pot, meet kettle,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing. Who did you say his father was again?”

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